April 1, 2016. Today, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, announced that an upcoming NIH study on chronic fatigue syndrome would be cancelled, due to an unexpected breakthrough by its lead clinical investigator Dr. Brian Walitt.

The breakthrough came after a painstaking review of several thousand research studies in the PubMed database, which revealed the true nature of the disease.

"It was there all along," said Dr. Collins. "But it took the eye of an expert clinician to find it."

Chronic fatigue syndrome, according to the NIH, is a complex, multi-system disease that affects nearly every part of the body and produces a plethora of symptoms. The wide array of symptoms, as well as the involvement of the nervous, immune and endocrine systems, have baffled scientists for decades. The question the scientific community could not answer was how one disease could produce so many effects.

"That's just it," said Dr. Walitt. "When we looked carefully, we found that not only did people with CFS have cytokines, neurochemicals, hormones, and red blood cells, but everyone else did too!"

This shocking revelation led to another ground-breaking finding.

"People with CFS have all the major organs that other people have," said Dr. Walitt. "They have arms, legs, torsos, and, in the vast majority of cases, faces, and these commonalities are found across the board. People with CFS have ALL THE THINGS. What's more, they have all these things, and these things that they have are also in their heads, which are attached to their bodies, which is true of everyone else as well. It's a narrative that encompasses all of culture and society."

"Dr. Walitt's findings will have an enormous impact on how we do science," said Dr. Collins.

On the heels of its cancellation of the CFS study, the NIH also announced that it would be closing down all of its Institutes, in favor of a single Institute : the Institute of Biopsychosocialculturalneuroendocrineimmune Syndromes.

"Having only one Institute will revolutionize how we do research in the future," said Dr. Collins. "From now on we will devote all our efforts to investigating BS."

WASHINGTON, April 1, 2014. Today, in an unprecedented move, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced a unilateral decision to cancel both the Institute of Medicine's contract to review diagnostic criteria for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome as well as the NIH Pathways to Prevention Workshop on ME/CFS.Calling the projects a “stupid waste of time and money,” she stated that all funding for the two panels would be immediately redirected to “legitimate scientific research” on the disease.

“I honestly don't know what I was thinking,” Sebelius told CNN. “Maybe it was something I ate.”

Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC, concurred that dietary issues may have been involved. “The ingestion of certain foodstuffs is known to produce temporary insanity,” he stated. “Rest assured that we are investigating this to the fullest.”

Secretary Sebelius' lapse in sanity may be widespread. A source, who wished to remain anonymous, said that other HHS staff may have been struck by the mysterious ailment, suggesting that it could be contagious.

But not everyone agrees that the illness is organic.

“What we are seeing here is a case of chronic mass hysteria,” said Dr. Stephen Seuss, a psychiatrist with the Mayo Clinic.

Dr. Seuss says that the general public has little to fear, as the condition – which he has dubbed “chronic fatuous syndrome,” or CFS - appears to primarily affect people in positions of authority.

Unexpected Decision Signals the End of an Error By A. Lotta Blarney April 1, 2013. The Atlanta Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a surprise statement this morning, announcing that it was changing the name of the disease formerly known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) to Post-Infectious Low Energy Syndrome. “The CDC feels that PILES more accurately reflects the seriousness with which we take this illness,” said CDC director, Thomas Frieden, in a press conference held early this morning. “We are sorry for the decades of misunderstanding caused by the use of the word ‘fatigue.’” The CFIDS Association of America, while voicing its approval over the removal of the “f” word, expressed some reservations in a tweet to its 1400 followers. “Fatigue gone, now have piles.” Though the AMA declined to comment, the American Board of Colon and Rectal Surgery welcomed the change in nomenclature, citing its years of experience in treating illnesses of a similar nature. The CDC concurred. “People with PILES now have their own specialized branch of medicine,” said Frieden. “This is a name we can all get behind.”

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About me:I'm a 25-year veteran of CFIDS. I know what it is like to be bedbound for long stretches of time. I also know what it is like to recover, and to relapse. But this blog is not about my personal experience. It is intended to be a resource - a collection of anything that might be helpful to the CFIDS community: book reviews, advice, CFIDS news, research, advocacy, opinion, who's who in our community, fundraising... and occasionally a bit of humor.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, which means nothing I write, no matter how sensible it may be, should be interpreted as medical advice.